Kiss Me – I’m Green and Local

St. Patrick’s Day is traditionally about eating green, drinking green and wearing green. And this year, Green Fire Times, the Santa Fe Alliance and several other organizations are asking Santa Feans to celebrate by buying green as well, and committing to making only local purchases within a 100-mile radius of Santa Fe.

While we think this should be an integral part of our everyday lifestyle, we understand that there may be occasional purchases of things such as imported drinks or Dutch Gouda. Not today, my green friends, not today. Let’s fill our trucks with local biodiesel, or even better, ride our bikes or the bus to work. Let’s turn off our TV’s and listen to locally produced radio, eat heartily at local restaurants and savor regionally produced drinks.

Now, we’re practical and realize it’s hard to do this every day of the year, especially when we’d rather not be producing hydrocarbons here in Santa Fe. But the fact of the matter is, if the readers of this paper make a concerted effort, we could make a serious dent for the day, help our friends in local businesses, and perhaps initiate some new buying practices. As Joni Mitchell said, “We’ll miss our clean white linen and fancy French cologne, but let’s go down to the local café and have some fun tonight.”

Local IS Green!

45 cents of every dollar spent with a locally owned business stays in your community, multiplying up to four times in the local tax base, helping parks, schools, first responders, libraries and community services. Local businesses give more to local nonprofits. And when local businesses buy from each other, more goods and services stay in our own backyard and more local NM foods get to our restaurants. Now that’s seriously green.

The Santa Fe Alliance is dedicated to helping you find the locally owned independent businesses in our community. Go to www.santafealliance.com to find out where to BUY LOCAL, BE GREEN!